While the upstairs show at the Philadelphia Art Alliance–a local show of installations sizzling with Latino style and good citizenship (see Roberta’s May 11 post for more info)–is sure to get the lion’s share of local media attention (I don’t mean to imply it doesn’t deserve it, because it does), the downstairs show, “The American River,” might get overlooked, and that would be a shame. The images, in a variety of traditional and not-so-traditional media, take up the landscape tradition with some surprising twists, in one beautiful image after another. My favorite may have been Stephen Hannock’s “The Oxbow…” (not shown), which harks to paintings by Church and Cole of the same locale but then takes the painting and the vision somewhere else entirely. Tom Leaver’s “Water Dissolved” (left), oil on wood, was one great spot of color that I thought would look swell on the computer (it still looked better in person, however). The show was organized by the Great River Arts Institute in New Hampshire. The Art Alliance’s four summer shows open tonight, May 15, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.and run to Aug. 31.
